Biomass Allocation and Allometric Relationships of Six Desert Herbaceous Plants in the Gurbantunggut Desert
Six dominant herbs, including two ephemeral plants (Nepeta micrantha and Hyalea pulchella), two ephemeroids (Eremurus inderiensis and Scorzonera pusilla) and two annual plants (Bassia dasyphylla and Ceratocarpus arenarius) were collected in the Gurbantunggut Desert, north-western China.And the biomass allocation and allometric relationships of the six species were investigated in this study.The results show that: (1) E.inderiensis and S.pusilla both allocated relatively more biomass to root and their root to shoot biomass ratio (R/S) were 1.412, 2.751.However, the root biomass of N.micrantha, H.pulchella and B.dasyphylla, C.arenarius were relatively small.The R/S of the four species showed no significant difference and their mean values were 0.150, 0.184, 0.144, 0.101, respectively.Two ephemeroid plants allocated the same ratio biomass to leaf, while the leaf biomass ratio (LBR) of the rest four species were different significantly.(2) R/S of the six species were declined significantly with increasing plant size, while LBR showed no consistent changing with increasing plant size, either decline or remain constant with changing plant size.(3) An isometric relationship between root and shoot were found for the two ephemeral plants (N.micrantha and H.pulchella), while other four species all showed allometric relationship between root and shoot (a>1.0, P<0.05).The six species showed isometric relationship between root and leaf, and a common allometric scaling exponent (1.035) were found.The study indicated that the difference on R/S and LBR for the six desert herbs were not only related to genetic property of species, but also affected by individual size.Additional, though there were difference on allomeric relationship between root and shoot among the six species, the same ratio of biomass allocation between root and leaf also indicated strong functional convergence to arid desert environment.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
维普
